Lucie Šafářová is one of the most supremely talented tennis-players I've ever seen. She's a fearless, ambitious shotmaker who loves to go for broke, and hits many spectacular winners. Her athleticism is amazing: she runs like the wind. Every time I see her play, she is a joy to watch.

In the quarter-finals of the Australian Open 2007, Lucie's average groundstroke-speed was measured at 71mph: 1mph faster than her opponent Nicole Vaidišová, and only 2mph slower than men's #2 Rafael Nadal. And she achieves such speeds with flairsome power: she may be only 5'9" with a light frame, but her groundstrokes are flat and she hits them with superb timing.

Lucie has a swinging lefty serve, and frequently uses it to set up a groundstroke-winner on the third stroke of the rally. She also has Seles-like returns of serve: she takes them early, often standing up to 1˝ metres inside the baseline to receive. She's very aggressive off the second serve.

Lucie has wonderful left-handed angles, and she can mix up the pace with very short, softly-spun crosscourt forehands and backhands to the sidelines, which are a speciality of hers.

Lucie has won four WTA singles-titles, but I think her best results so far have been reaching her first Major quarter-final at the Australian Open 2007 (by beating defending champion Amélie Mauresmo 6-4 6-3), immediately followed by reaching the WTA Paris 2007 final (beating Nicole Vaidišová, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Justine Henin back-to-back – all in straight sets).

Lucie has already had a couple of memorable French Open campaigns. In 2007, she upset Amélie Mauresmo 6-3 7-6 in the third round. In 2009, she had match-point at 5-4* in the third set against Venus Williams before losing their second-round encounter 6-7 6-2 7-5.

2010 is shaping up to be the best year of Lucie's career so far. She goes into the French Open with a win/loss record of 19:15, and her current ranking of #26 is just shy of her career-high #22 set in August 2007, but what's really impressive is firstly her run to the Paris-final in February, and secondly that she reached three Premier quarter-finals just before the French Open (including her run to the semi-finals of Madrid), beating five top-18 players in those three tournaments.

Lucie thrashed #34 Aleksandra Woźniak 6-3 6-1 in the second round of Brisbane, then lost to eventual champion Kim Clijsters in a see-saw match: 6-1 0-6 6-4. Lucie lost just nine points in the second set, hitting clean winners all over the court!

Sadly, Lucie retired from Hobart with a left-pectoral-muscle strain, and lost 6-2 6-2 to Venus Williams in the first round of the Australian Open. Struggling after a bout of 'flu, she also lost 6-2 6-2 to Anna-Lena Grönefeld in Czechia's Fed Cup tie in February.

But the following week, Lucie bounced back to reach the final of WTA Paris for the second time in her career, beating #171 Tamira Paszek 6-0 6-3, #18 Francesca Schiavone 7-5 6-2, #22 Shahar Pe'er 7-5 6-2, #12 Flavia Pennetta 4-6 6-3 6-4, and losing 6-7 6-1 6-4 to #7 Elena Dementieva in the final.

Lucie spent most of March and April in a slump, as she lost to #88 Julie Coin in the first round of Monterrey, and to #69 Julia Görges in the first round of Indian Wells.

The clay-court season did not start well for Lucie, as she lost 6-3 7-6 to #67 Regina Kulikova in the first round of Barcelona, and then suffered a humiliating 6-0 6-2 loss to Francesca Schiavone in Czechia's Fed Cup semi-final, followed by the ignominy of being substituted for the second tie in a row, after she injured her shoulder while practising for her next rubber.

But it seems that Fed Cup humiliation is actually a lucky charm for Lucie, because just as she had reached the Paris-final the week after the previous tie, she then embarked on a stunning upswing of form that appeared to establish her as a genuine French Open title-contender!

Lucie reached the quarter-finals of Stuttgart, although she had a lucky escape in the first round, when #372 Selima Sfar thrashed her 6-2 in the first set, but retired with an ankle-injury at 0-3 in the second. Lucie then upset #2 Caroline Woźniacki 6-4 6-4 in the second round, although Woźniacki has been struggling ever since she sprained her ankle at Charleston. Lucie then lost 7-6 1-6 6-1 to #138 Anna Lapushchenkova.

Whether that win over Woźniacki was a fluke or not, Lucie followed it up with a superb run to the quarter-finals of Rome, beating #42 Olga Govortsova 6-2 6-7 6-3, #16 Flavia Pennetta 6-1 6-2(!) and #9 Agnieszka Radwańska 1-6 6-3 7-6 (7/1). She lost 7-6 6-4 to eventual champion María José Martínez Sánchez.

Lucie then reached the semi-finals of the Madrid Premier Mandatory, starting with a 6-4 6-3 win over #12 Maria Sharapova in Maria's first match back from a two-month lay-off with an elbow-injury. Lucie proceeded to beat #41 Olga Govortsova 4-6 6-2 7-5 (from *2-4 down in the third), #38 Alexandra Dulgheru 6-7 6-1 7-6 (8/6) (Dulgheru twice served for the match, with match-point at *6-5), and #18 Nadia Petrova 6-1 1-6 6-4. Lucie has tremendous determination and fighting spirit! Sadly, Lucie retired from her semi-final with a left-thigh injury, after losing the first set 6-1 to eventual champion Aravane Rezaď.

Lucie beat out-of-shape #115 Jelena Dokić 6-2 6-2 in the first round of the French Open, but her high hopes of Major glory were dashed when she suffered a shocking 6-1 6-2 loss to #52 Polona Hercog. I don't know whether her left-thigh or left-shoulder injury flared up again, or whether it was simply a very bad day at the office for the high-risk Lucie.

Lucie beat #30 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4 3-6 6-4 in the first round of Eastbourne, then lost 6-1 6-0 to the ugly, muscular Kim Clijsters in a match that the world #9 described as "quick and perfect", having thrashed #16 Yanina Wickmayer 6-1 6-1 in the first round.

3.1 First-round preview
-----------------------

* LUCIE ŠAFÁŘOVÁ [25,EF] v Dominika Cibulková

World #46 Cibulková is one of the shortest players on the WTA Tour at 5'3", but one of the quickest and feistiest. The good news for Lucie is that Cibulková is much weaker on grass than on other surfaces: she suffered first-round losses at Wimbledon 2007 and 2008 before reaching the third round last year.

Now aged 21, Cibulková was ranked as high as #12 in July 2009, following a run to the semi-finals of the French Open, but since then, she has suffered a series of injuries, although she has quietly compiled an impressive 21:12 win/loss record for 2010 so far!

Cibulková reached the quarter-finals of Sydney with a 7-6 6-1 win over #51 Tímea Bacsinszky followed by a stunning 7-5 6-2 upset of #3 Svetlana Kuznetsova, then lost 2-6 6-2 7-5 to #7 Victoria Azarenka.

Cibulková crashed out in the first round of the Australian Open: 6-3 6-7 7-5 to #79 Vania King after blowing a 1:1 5-1* lead with 4 MPs!

In the Slovakia v China Fed Cup tie, Cibulková scored two easy wins over players ranked outside the top 151. She then beat #43 Yaroslava Shvedova 6-4 6-4 at Dubai, before losing 6-2 7-6 to #3 Caroline Woźniacki in the second round.

Cibulková beat #55 Iveta Benešová 6-2 6-2 in the first round of Madrid, but lost 6-2 3-6 7-5 to #13 Li,Na in the second round.

Cibulková reached the third round of the French Open, beating #148 Ekaterina Ivanova and #127 Varvara Lepchenko 4-6 6-2 6-0, but found her path to the defence of her semi-final blocked by #2 Venus Williams, who beat her 6-3 6-4. Her ranking dropped from #26 to #46 as a result.

Cibulková beat #236 Laura Robson 6-3 6-4 in the first round of 's-Hertogenbosch, which is a pretty impressive result considering that grass is Cibulková's worst surface and Robson won the Wimbledon 2008 Girls' Singles as a 14-year-old. Cibulková beat #124 Arantxa Rus 6-2 7-5 in the second round, but lost 6-2 6-3 to #68 Kirsten Flipkens in the quarter-finals.

Although Lucie lost her only previous meeting with Cibulková 6-4 6-3 in the first round of Doha 2008, Lucie certainly has the game to overpower Cibulková on grass, and I expect her to overcome her recent injury-woes and inconsistency to do so.

3.2 Later rounds
----------------

Should Lucie get past Cibulková, she would then face the winner of #101-ranked Selesian player Ayumi Morita and #105-ranked ageing grass-court expert Tamarine Tanasugarn, who is but a shadow of her former self at the moment.

The third round might bring #1 Serena Williams – though not if Anna Chakvetadze has anything to say about it!

A very disappointing loss for Lucie, as although Cibulková is a very good player, I felt that Lucie should overpower Cibulková on grass. But Cibulková has more experience on the surface now, and with the hot, dry weather, the Wimbledon courts are playing more like hard courts.

Lucie broke right at the start of the match, but blew a 5-3* lead in the first set. The second set was serve-dominated, with Lucie saving a BP at *1-1, and being broken to love in the 7th game. She had one BP at 4-5* in the second, but lost the next three points - game, set and match.

Sadly, this is the third straight year that Lucie has lost in the first round of Wimbledon, but I refuse to accept that she's not good on grass, as I remember her wonderful third-round performance against Jelena Janković at Wimbledon 2007, and that she reached the final of 's-Hertogenbosch 2005.

P.S. Petra Kvitová is a poor man's Lucie Šafářová. She has that swinging lefty serve, but without the amazing speed of movement or quite as much power as Lucie.

P.P.S. It was very nice to see Lucie in the Player's Box for Tomáš Berdych's semi-final and final, and sitting on his practice-court. I don't know how he can concentrate on his tennis when she's there!